Macroscopic movement of azo polymer chains by near‐field probes: Dependence on the illumination conditions

Abstract

The movement of photosensitive azo polymers induced by scanning near-field illumination is studied. As a function of the photon flux illuminating the sample and exposure time, different effects are obtained: from a nanoscopic reorientation, inducing birefringence in the sample, to a macroscopic movement of the photosensitive polymers. It is also shown that this movement is strongly influenced by the state of incident light polarization. The combination of azo polymers and nearfield illumination allows encoding sub diffraction information and can be exploited in applications as nanomachining and nanofabrication.Birefringence signal associated to nanoscopic reorientation of the azomers.

Design of Collective Motions from Synthetic Molecular Switches, Rotors, and Motors

“…SRG are formed on large areas, but the mass motion upon polarized irradiation can also be achieved on localized spots, either with focused beams − or by the near-field generated by metallic structures (that is, surface plasmons). , The latter case has actually been used to map such near-fields generated by metallic nanostructures. ,− Hubert et al described a system where they coated pDR1m on an array of silver and gold nanostructures. After irradiation with polarized light, they observed by AFM the formation of surface reliefs, close to the theoretical calculations of the photogenerated near-fields (Figure ).…”

Near-field optical control of doughnut-shaped nanostructures

“…To date, only few examples show a broad range of one, two and three dimensional azopolymer nanostructures grown by chemical synthesis with near-field illumination and, particularly, with a scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) lithography [7]. The macroscopic movement of azopolymer chains by near-field probes was demonstrated [8] and the inscription of local surface relief gratings as well [9].…”